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THE CLOUD 



THE CLOUD 



BY 



SARTELL PRENTICE 



' Behold there ariseth a little cloud 
out of the sea, like a vtan's hand' 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
68 1 Fifth Avenue 



Copyright 1 91 8 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



Printed in the United States of America, 

JUL '5 iBiB 
©l;U4995()1 



TO MY WIFE 



A Cloud Like a Man's Hand 

UP on the crest of Carmel a man 
stood watching. Before him 
lay the blue waters of the 
Mediterranean Sea, to the North the 
curving Bay of Acre, while to the 
south the white suii was breaking on 
the reefs of Philistia. 

At the other end of the long Carmel 
ridge another man stood waiting. 
Before his eyes the great Plain of 
Esdraelon lay extended with the 
hills of Galilee to the North and the 
great bulk of Mt. Gilboa, faint in the 
summer haze, bounding the vision to 
the East. 

Seven times the Watcher had 
cHmbed to the Western crest of 



2 THE CLOUD 

Carmel ; six times he had returned to 
report that there was nothing to be 
seen, and seven times he had been 
bidden, " Go up again; look towards 
the sea." Now at last he knew that 
his vigil was ended; something had 
risen above the horizon that told him 
his watch was past. It was a very- 
little thing; yet it sent him speeding 
back along the mountain's ridge until 
he came again to the man who was 
waiting. ''Behold," he said, "There 
ariseth a little cloud out of the sea 
like a man's hand." And the man 
who waited sent word to a King of 
Israel, saying, "Prepare thy chariot." 
A man's hand is a very little thing, 
frail and weak, but we have seen a 
cloud like a man's hand, a man's 
hand clad in armor, rising up beyond 
the sea. The shadow of that cloud 



THE CLOUD 3 

fell on Poland, and Poland died. It 
fell on Russia, and a great Empire 
went down in darkness and eclipse. 
It fell on Serbia, and blotted her out, 
on Roumania, and Roumania passed 
into bondage. It fell on Belgium, and 
Belgium cried out a little and then 
grew still. That shadow fell on 
France and even the trees withered 
and died. It stretched out over the 
sea and touched the Lusitania, and 
she crumpled and went down, carry- 
ing with her 120 American dead. 
And now that shadow falls upon our 
own shores and darkens the streets 
and homes of our towns and cities. 
So to-day the summons has gone 
forth to every American, " Prepare 
thy chariot!" Each one of us has 
his own — not to all of us is the same 
kind given. To some of us it is the 



4 THE CLOUD 

Red Cross, to others it is the voice 
©r the pen, to every one of us it is 
the buying of Liberty Bonds, to some 
of us it is the Training Camp, the 
Trench, and the Battlefield. But to 
every man, woman, and child of us 
the hour has come to " Prepare our 
chariots." For America has willed 
with all her might, her soul, her 
strength, that the shadow of that 
" Cloud like a man's hand " shall 
forever pass away; that it shall no 
longer rest on Poland, Russia, Serbia, 
Roumania, Belgium, France or on our 
own America, but that Liberty, Jus- 
tice, and Democracy shall shine in 
an unclouded sky and that no shadow 
of a man's mailed fist shall darken 
either the homes or the hearts of men. 
In 1204 Philip Augustus laid siege 
to the Chateau Gaillard, which Rich- 



THE CLOUD 5 

ard Coeur de Lion had built to defend 
his lands of Normandy. In the course 
of that siege, the little town of Les 
Andelys was destroyed, and the peas- 
ants, some 1400 in number, fled to 
the Chateau for refuge. But Sir 
Roger de Lacy, defending for Eng- 
land, was already facing starvation, 
England was far away, John Lack- 
land was slow, and provisions were 
failing. He did not dare admit these^ 
1400 *' bouches inutiles," for that 
would mean the almost immediate 
surrender of his trust. Therefore he 
kept the gates of the castle closed. 
But the besiegers would not allow the 
refugees to pass through their lines, 
their Commandant believing that the 
compassion of the English would 
sooner or later compel them to receive 
these fugitives if they saw them starv- 



6 THE CLOUD 

ing before their eyes. So they held 
them between the Hnes until they 
starved to death, so the story goes. 
It is a long way from 1204 to the 
present time, but last year General 
von Bissing, the German Governor 
of Belgium, said to F. C. Wolcott, 
the representative of the Rockefeller 
Foundation, " Starvation is a great 
weapon. We mean to use it to force 
thousands of Belgian skilled workmen 
into German factories, thousands of 
Belgian farmers into the fields of 
Mesopotamia. The rest — the ineffec- 
tives, the very old and the very young, 
the weak and the useless — we mean 
to place in front of the firing line, 
put firing squads behind them, and 
drive them through the French and 
English lines, that France and Eng- 
land may take care of them." That 



THE CLOUD 7 

is what Germany has been doing ever 
since the war broke out. Wherever 
her armies have gone, from Armenia to 
Serbia, Poland, Belgium, and France, 
she has been driving women, children, 
and men through our lines for us to 
care for. Nay, it is more than this; 
it is not men, women and children, 
but it is the very essence and prin- 
ciple of manhood, womanhood, and 
childhood that she has been forcings 
through our lines and that we have 
called upon to care for. 

I am not going to tell you again 
what Germany has been doing to 
men, women, and children; I am not 
going to repeat the stories of her 
atrocities. A year ago I should have 
felt compelled to tell you what to- 
day I feel I may leave unsaid, for a 
year ago we were not sure, we could 



8 THE CLOUD 

not, many of us, bring ourselves to 
believe, that men bom of women 
could do such things. But to-day 
we know. The awful tale of helpless 
ships sunk so as to leave no trace, 
the shelling of life boats, the sinking 
of hospital ships, the bombing of 
hospitals and ambulances, the cruci- 
fixion of men, the outraging of women, 
the torturing of children, the en- 
slaving of entire populations, all these 
barbarisms are proved not merely by 
the testimony of many witnesses, but 
from the lips of the very soldiers and 
sailors of Germany herself. So I 
gladly pass these things by, only 
bidding you remember that in this 
war German ruthlessness has driven 
manhood, womanhood, and childhood 
through our lines for us to protect. 
But there is something else that has 



THE CLOUD 9 

been driven into our lines and which 
we are called upon to guard. We 
are protecting the freedom and dig- 
nity of Labor. I wish every laboring 
man could be made to understand 
Labor's stake in this war. The lead- 
ers of American labor, for the most 
part, have understood from the begin- 
ning. Their appeals to the manhood 
of the country have been stirring and 
stimulating, and to-day Labor is ^ 
beginning to respond. There are 
fewer strikes and more effectiveness. 
But the individual laboring man did 
not grasp the issues from the first. 
If he had there would not have been 
3000 strikes in the first year of our 
war, with a total of 6000 years of 
labor lost. Let me speak for a 
moment of Labor's stake in this war. 
Ambassador Gerard says, " The 



10 THE CLOUD 

workingmen in the cities of Germany 
are worked longer and get less out 
of life than any other workmen in 
the world. The laws so much ad- 
mired, insurance against unemploy- 
ment, sickness, injury, old age, etc., 
are in reality skillful measures which 
bind the workmen to the soil as effect- 
ively as the serfs of the Middle Ages 
were boimd to their masters' estates. 
" I have had letters from working- 
men . . . begging for a steerage fare 
to America, saying that their insur- 
ance payments were so large that they 
cotild not save money from their 
wages. Of course, after making these 
payments for some years the working- 
man hesitates to emigrate and lose 
all the premiums he has paid to the 
State. In peace times a skilled me- 
chanic receives less than two dollars 



THE CLOUD 11 

a day, for which he must work at 
least ten hours.'* He says that he 
visited a nobleman on his estate in 
Hungary, where-as throughout the 
Central Empires, — the agricultural 
work is largely done by women who 
are paid twenty cents a day. " The 
women in the farming districts of 
Germany are worked harder than 
the cattle. In summer time they 
are in the fields at five or six o'clock 
in the morning and they work until 
eight o'clock or later at night. For 
this they are paid as high as forty- 
eight cents a day in harvest time." 
We have a Contract Labor Law which 
forbids the importation of labor. 
Germany every year imports a mil- 
lion laborers from abroad and the 
employers favor both the employment 
of women in farm work and the im- 



12 THE CLOUD 

portation of labor, for the more 
workers the lower the scale of wages 
throughout the Empire. 

There is a document written by a 
German, Siegfried Balder, which is 
printed in the Congressional Record 
for January 17, 19 18. 

The writer says that in Prussia, 
whose population is two thirds that of 
all Germany, only one twentieth of 
the householders have an income 
equal to $750 a year, while over 
fifty per cent are living on $225 a 
year or less; more than 820,000 of the 
population of Berlin are living in 
single rooms, while 49,991 of these 
single rooms house from five to thir- 
teen people each. Large numbers of 
the Prussian work people are doomed 
to live and die in quarters narrower 
than a prison celL 



THE CLOUD 13 

But if this is what Germany does 
to her own, to men of Teuton blood 
and to the children of the Teuton 
God, what does she do to those who 
are bom in the outer darkness of 
other lands, to those who are not of 
Teuton blood, to the laboring men of 
other nationalities? 

You know the story of the Belgian 
Deportations. When the Germans 
overran Belgium many thousands of 
the people sought refuge under the 
flag of Holland. Germany then 
pledged her word to Holland that, 
if she would exert " gentle pressure " 
on these refugees and force them to 
return to their homes, the German 
Administration in Belgium would hold 
itself botuid by the terms of the Hague 
Conventions. The German authori- 
ties " did not for a moment dream of 



14 THE CLOUD 

making them prisoners, of making 
requisitions, or of deporting those who 
are law abiding into Germany." The 
German Governor of Antwerp also 
gave his pledge to Cardinal Mercier, 
first verbally and then in writing, that 
*' young men need not fear deporta- 
tion into Germany whether for enroll- 
ment in the army or for employment 
at forced labor." This pledge was 
finally ratified by the Governor Gen- 
eral, Gen. von der Goltz, in the pres- 
ence of witnesses '' pour la generalite 
du pays et sans limite de temps." 
(Les Deportations Beiges, a la Lu- 
miere des Documents Allemands, 
Chapter 14.) 

One year later another Proclama- 
tion appeared: 

" Recently workmen have refused, 
without reason, in different parts of 



THE CLOUD 15 

the occupied territory, to obey the 
commands of the Military Command- 
ers relative to the performance of 
necessary work; they have caused 
great harm to their communes and 
their fellow citizens. To avoid such 
conditions I order as follows: 

"Those who are able but refuse to 
work or to continue their labors in 
accordance with their usual occupa- 
tions, in accord with the interests of -> 
the German Military Administra- 
tion and the desire of the German 
Military Commanders shall be pun- 
ished by imprisonment up to one year. 
Also recusants may be sent into Ger- 
many. The fact that they appeal to 
any possible law of Belgium or even 
to International Conventions can 
never justify a refusal to work. The 
Military Commander alone will decide 



16 THE CLOUD 

on the acceptability of the forced 
labor." 

One year later still, in October, 
191 6, the deportations began. It is 
not necessary that the story be told 
again. You know that boys and 
girls, men and women were torn from 
their homes, packed into cattle cars 
and sent on long journeys, with 
insufficient food and clothing, into 
Germany. There they were threat- 
ened with rifles, bayonets, and ma- 
chine guns to compel them to sign 
statements to the effect that they 
were voluntary workers in German 
munition factories. Do you know 
that girls have been beaten with whips 
for failing to complete their tasks? 
In one place they were promised four 
marks a day, but two and a half marks 
were deducted for food and lodging, 



THE CLOUD 17 

one mark for clothes, half a mark 
went into a " reserve fund " and they 
were paid half a mark a day, about 
six cents. But they did not really 
receive that for they were imder a 
military Governor who had the power 
to fine them up to fifty dollars for the 
infraction of any one of a hundred 
petty miHtary rules, for failure to 
salute an officer, for instance, and 
remember, the German salutes his-^ 
officer when he is two blocks away. 
In other words they were subject to 
a fine, without appeal, which was 
equal to more than two and one third 
years' pay at six cents a day! We 
have the record of a girl, which is 
interesting only because she is a type, 
who received 187 cents for 180 days 
work, about one cent a day. 

An advertisement appeared recently 



18 THE CLOUD 

in a Berlin paper which read as fol- 
lows: " For Exchange: Fifty Polish 
workpeople, twenty men, thirty girls, 
for exchange for an equal number of 
workpeople of other nationalities." 

Wherein does this differ from slav- 
ery? God help the workers of Amer- 
ica if Germany wins this war. Do 
you realize what Germany proposes 
for America? Mr. McAdoo has al- 
ready told us that she proposes to 
take from us an indemnity of one 
hundred and twenty-five billions of 
dollars, one-half our total wealth. 
She has told us that she will take 
charge of our Monroe Doctrine and 
" put us in right relations with Ger- 
many." Now she tells us that she 
intends to dictate to us our tariff 
laws, to tell us what we must admit 
free of duty and what we must ship 



THE CLOUD 19 

without impost. In other words, 
Germany proposes to bring the Amer- 
ican workman, who before this war 
was receiving an average wage of 
$667 a year, into competition with 
the Prussian worker, who lived on 
$2 2 5 a year. Let every laboring man, 
skilled or unskilled, understand his 
own vital stake in the winning of 
this war. 

Now look at some of the issues of 
this war. 

You know Germany's dream of a 
Middle Empire; of a great new king- 
dom that is to stretch from the English 
Channel to the Persian Gulf, from 
the borders of Normandy through 
Mesopotamia. It is to include North- 
eastern France, Belgium, Luxemburg, 
Denmark, Holland, Germany, Austro- 
Hungary, parts of Switzerland and 



20 THE CLOUD 

Italy, Serbia, Roumania, Turkey, 
Armenia, Asia Minor and Mesopo- 
tamia. Into this Middle Kingdom 
Greece and Roumania on the South 
and Norway and Sweden on the North 
are to be forced by economic pressure. 
To this Empire we must now add 
Poland, Courland, Livonia, Finland 
and the Ukraine, while Persia is to 
be " exploited " for the benefit of 
Germany. 

Think for a moment of the re- 
sotirces of this Empire. 

Htmgary, Roumania, Asia Minor, 
the Ukraine and Mesopotamia can 
feed the entire world. The oil fields of 
Roumania, Southern Russia and Mes- 
opotamia can light the world. The 
iron fields of Mesopotamia are said to 
be the richest tmdeveloped iron mines 
existing on the globe, and the Argen- 



THE CLOUD 21 

nis copper mines are without a rival. 
This Empire could provide an army 
of fifteen million men in times of 
peace and of forty million in times of 
war. Its railroads, rivers and canals 
afford the most complete transporta- 
tion system heart could desire. You 
could not starve it and with its ports 
upon four oceans, you never could 
blockade it. Strategically, it lies 
across three great divisions of the 
world, Europe, Asia and Africa, in 
such position that it could dominate 
them all. 

Now it is important that you should 
understand the relation of iron to 
this war, for iron means steel, and steel 
means guns, rifles, shells, aeroplanes, 
ships and all the material of war. A 
nation that can control the world's 
iron supply can dominate the world. 



22 THE CLOUD 

At the outbreak of this war Ger- 
many had an annual production of 
twenty-eight milUons tons of iron, of 
which seven million came from Ger- 
many and twenty-one million came 
from Alsace-Lorraine, which Germany 
stole from France in 1870. France 
had twenty-two million tons of iron 
a year, of which fifteen came from 
the basin of Briey, in Northeastern 
France. The first rush of Germany 
carried her over the coal fields of 
Belgium, over Luxemburg, over the 
mines of the Briey Basin and put her 
in possession of practically all the 
foundries and steel mills that France 
possessed. When Germany settled 
down to trench warfare she had an 
annual production of forty-nine mil- 
lion tons of iron, seven million from 
Germany, twenty -one from Lorraine, 



THE CLOUD 25 

six from Luxemburg and fifteen from 
the occupied districts of France, while 
France had only seven million left. 
That is why Germany was so bitter 
against England when England en- 
tered the war; that is why she was so 
insistent that we should put an em- 
bargo on munitions, for if England 
had not come in and kept the seas 
open, if we had consented to forbid 
the shipment of munitions, France 
must have swiftly fallen through the 
sheer starvation of her guns, for a 
nation with seven million tons of iron 
a year cannot contend with one pos- 
sessing forty-nine million tons. 

But stop for a moment to remem- 
ber, since we are speaking of the 
shipment of munitions, that Austria 
herself, the Government of Vienna, 
sold to the Confederate Government 



24 THE CLOUD 

some thousands of stacks of arms 
during our Civil War, and refused 
either to forbid the shipment or to 
resell to the Government in Wash- 
ington. Germany sold arms to the 
Boers and to England during the 
War in South Africa, and when the 
English blockade made it impossible 
to continue selling to the Boers she 
went on selling to England. She sold 
to Spain during our war with Spain. 
She has never considered placing an 
embargo upon her own munition 
plants when other nations were at 
war, yet she poured out the vials of 
her hate upon us for doing what she 
herself has always done. 

But now grant that Germany wins 
this war and that that Great Middle 
Empire, which already, mark you, is 
a reality from Lille almost to Bagdad, 



THE CLOUD 25 

remains and endures, who is going 
to control and rule it? Germany 
has forty-nine million tons of iron a 
year; Austria has very little iron, 
Italy has none, neither Roumania, 
Bulgaria or Serbia have any iron, 
Turkey has none except in Mesopo- 
tamia, which Germany will control. 
Wlio then will be the master of that 
Middle Empire? It will be only 
Prussia writ large. But Germany's 
control rests on other foundations' 
still; her General Staff to-day con- 
trols the military establishments of 
all her allies, not a command can be 
given an3n;vhere without Germany's 
assent. Moreover the printing presses 
of Berlin have been busy since the 
war broke out, stamping out paper 
money which has been loaned to 
Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey until 



26 THE CLOUD 

these countries are hopelessly entan- 
gled in an economic net. 

Now, in the Spring of 1918, we are 
about to receive the impact of a new 
peace drive from Germany. But 
what may we expect Germany to 
propose? The most liberal terms 
that have been suggested are a return 
to the status quo ante, peace without 
indemnities or annexations. 

But remember that Germany has 
collected her indemnities as she has 
gone along. She took four hundred 
and eighty million francs from Bra- 
bant alone in one seizure; she has 
been taking sixty million francs a 
month, 720 million francs a year from 
Belgium since she violated her fron- 
tiers. She has looted every safe, 
national, civic or in private dwellings, 
she has taken the locomotives and the 



THE CLOUD 2T 

rolling stock from all railroads, the 
ploughs, harrows and live stock from 
all farms, the machinery from all 
factories, she has taken the art 
treasures from, all museum.s, churches, 
palaces and homes ; she has taken the 
mercury from the backs of mirrors, 
the wool from the mattresses, the 
linen from the shelves, she has taken 
name-plates, door laiobs, knockers, 
curtain rods, carpet rods, kitchen ^ 
utensils and the bells from the 
churches. She has drawn her net 
so fine that she has taken the francs 
and centimes from her prisoners and 
she has picked the pockets of the 
dead! 

Advertisments appear in, the Berlin 
papers wherein contractors offer to 
transport the loot from any con- 
quered territory on most reasonable 



28 THE CLOUD 

terms, while at number 35 Schoenber- 
ger Strasse there is a great warehouse 
where you might buy Hnens, laces, 
furniture, statuary, bric-a-brac, cra- 
dles, anything you like for almost 
anything you care to offer, for official 
Germany is selling the loot and plun- 
der she has gathered in in violation 
of those Hague Regulations which 
Germany signed and swore to observe ; 
" Family honor and rights, individual 
life and private property as well as 
religious convictions and worship must 
be respected . ' ' Article 46 . 

" Pillage is expressly forbidden," 
Article 47. 

Austria staggers beneath her load 
of debt; Bulgaria and Turkey are 
hopelessly impoverished, England and 
France march on towards bank- 
ruptcy, Germany also is drawing very 



THE CLOUD 29 

near financial ruin, but even at that 
she has gathered in such a harvest 
of wealth as no war has ever brought 
to any people, and now she asks for a 
" peace without indemnities " ! 

And she wants *' Peace without 
annexations." 

Belgium has been stripped to the 
bone. Her recovery will require cen- 
turies. Never again will Belgium be 
able to block Germany's pathway, '' 
never again shall there be an epic of 
Liege. So Germany will give back 
Belgium. 

She will give back Serbia, but she 
cannot give back the Serbians. Those 
that have survived the battlefield, 
the famine, plague and pestilence 
are being, or have been, massacred. 
Her farms are tenantless, her cities 
empty, the grass is growing in her 



30 THE CLOUD 

streets. Never again shall Serbia 
bar Germany's drive to the east. 
Her abandoned leaseholds invite true 
Germans to move in and take pos- 
session. So Germany will give back 
Serbia. But England must give back 
Mesopotamia and let Germany come 
down to the Persian Gulf! England 
must give back Syria and let Germany 
come down to the Suez Canal! Eng- 
land must give back the colonies in 
Africa that her own colonists have 
won and suffer anew Germany's let 
and hindrance to the Cape to Cairo 
railroad ! 

What wonder Germany desires a 
" Peace without indemnities or annex- 
ations"? But we have not yet ex- 
hausted Germany's profits in this 
war. Without cotmting her recent 
advances into Finland, Roumania and 



THE CLOUD 31 

the Ukraine, without counting her 
last conquest in Russia, Germany has 
seized 500,000 square kilometers of 
conquered soil occupied by a popula- 
tion of forty-two millions ; from these 
millions Germany has been drawing 
that forced labor which she has been 
paying at the biblical wage of a penny 
a day. I am often asked to admire 
the great fight Germiany has put up 
against the entire world. But I ^ 
know that that fight has been made 
possible only because, against all 
the instincts and laws of civilization, 
Germany has been enslaving huge 
populations, setting them to forbidden 
tasks in order to release every German 
for her armies. Without that slavery 
Germany could not have raised such 
armies or endured so long. Not to 
Germany, but to England and to 



32 THE CLOUD 

France, which — ^while enslaving no 
nation, have given twenty per cent 
of their entire population to this war, 
is honor and reverence due! And 
this Germany wants peace because 
she is already dreaming of another 
war. Frederick Nauman, member of 
the Reichstag, tells us that she will 
build bams and granaries to hold a 
supply of food sufficient for her entire 
population for ten years; that she 
will build concrete entrenchments, 
impregnable lines of defence, along 
all her frontiers. Germany has al- 
ready enforced a dreadful kind of 
concubinage, to avoid a worse term, 
upon the women of the occupied 
territories, and now we have evidence 
that she is enforcing that same dread- 
ful system upon the women of her 
own land in utter disregard of all 



THE CLOUD 83 

ethics, religion and the dignity of 
womanhood. At any expense Ger- 
many means to have boys that, twenty 
years from now, when France is still 
exhausted from this struggle and 
before England shall have regathered 
her strength, Germany shall have a 
new army to send over the Rhine, 
through spent Belgium and imre- 
cuperated France. Then there shall 
be no halt before the walls of Paris, ^ 
no battle of the Mame, no failure 
at Calais ! 

And let America keep in mind the 
fact that this Germany has expressed 
the greatest hostility for America. 
" Let America look out when this 
war is finished," and " I will stand 
no nonsense from America after this 
war," said the Kaiser to Ambassador 
Gerard. In 1898 Count von Goetzen 



34 THE CLOUD 

said, in substance, " About fifteen 
years from now my country will 
begin a great war ; in a few weeks we 
shall have taken Paris; in three 
months we shall occupy London; 
then we will turn to America. We 
will take some billions of dollars from 
America in indemnities; we will put 
you in your right relation with Ger- 
many and we will take charge of 
the Monroe Doctrine for ourselves." 
*' We are keeping books on you Amer- 
icans," said Major Liebster. "It is 
a long account, and we have not 
missed a detail. We are keeping the 
account in black and white; rest 
assiured that it will be presented to 
you some day for settlement." In 
1 90 1 Freiherr von Edelsheim of the 
German General Staff wrote a book 
on sea power, in which he briefly out- 



THE CLOUD 35 

lined a German plan for the conquest 
of America and said: " Germany is 
the only power in a position to con- 
quer America." If once we and our 
allies let go our grip, if we grow soft, 
if we falter and fail, be very sure we 
and our children shall pay to the full 
the penalty. 

I heard Major Murphy say that the 
Captain of the Arabic, who had 
gone down with his torpedoed ship^ 
and had been rescued from the sea, 
told him that as long as he stayed on 
the bridge of that sinking vessel, 
every time he rang a bell to the engine 
room he got the answering signal. 
I know no story of heroism in all this 
war that moves me more than this. 
Have you ever been in the engine 
room of a great liner where the sides 
come close together and you can put 



36 THE CLOUD 

your fingers on the steel plates and 
know that just a fraction of an 
inch beyond, the deep green waters 
of the sea are running? Then take 
your stand with these thirty or forty 
stokers and engineers; the ship is 
sinking, you know that the life boats 
are putting off, rafts are being 
launched and men are leaping into 
the sea. Now turn and look up that 
narrow and twisting iron stairway 
and watch for the first green gleam of 
foam-flecked waters to come cas- 
cading down, and then every time 
the bell rings give back the answering 
signal. 

Our Ship of State has pushed out 
into a stormy sea; the officers are on 
the bridge, the lookout at the prow; 
the fortunate men are at the gun. 
To us, far in the interior, there comes 



THE CLOUD 37 

the humbler task of keeping the 
fires burning on which depends the 
vital element of speed, but wher- 
ever you stand, whatever your work, 
see to it that when your call comes 
you can give back the answering 
signal. 

And there is so much that we can 
do. 

In the first place this war has been 
made possible only by the ghastly^ 
education which Germany has been 
giving her children through the past 
forty years. Dr. Van Dyke said that 
there was an American professor, I 
think of Columbia University, who 
had written a life of Goethe. When 
he was in Germany the Minister of 
Education sent for him and asked 
permission to translate that Life into 
German for use in German schools. 



38 THE CLOUD 

Permission having been readily given 
he said: " But there is one chapter 
that must come out before we can 
put that book into the hands of Ger- 
man children. You have a chapter 
on Goethe as a lover of liberty; we 
would like that omitted from our text 
book." To the credit of America let 
it be said the book never was trans- 
lated nor has it yet appeared in 
German schools; but it is significant 
that German children must not be 
taught that a great German could be 
a lover of liberty. Professor Kusian, 
of Hollins College, Virginia, said that 
in his day William Tell could not 
be read in German schools. There 
is a song that German school children 
are singing to-day that was written by 
a school master and this is the trans- 
lation: *' Over there in the cowardly 



THE CLOUD 39 

trenches lie the enemy, and no one 
but a dog will say that mercy should 
be given to-day. Shoot down every- 
thing that cries for mercy; kill 
everything like dogs; more enemies, 
more enemies, be your prayer in 
this day of retribution." 

Can you imagine teaching children 
lessons like that? 

There is a juvenile paper published 
in Germany that recently contained' 
an article whose substance follows: 
*' War is divine, it is glorious. When 
the soldier falls upon the battle- 
field, his spirit goes directly to the 
gates of Paradise, where all good 
soldiers go, but none of those old 
women in petticoats who say that 
war is brutal ; there a Prussian Lance 
Corporal throws wide the door." (It 
is worth noting that St. Peter has 



40 THE CLOUD 

lost his job, that a Prussian Lance 
Corporal now bears the key and deter- 
mines who shall be and who shall 
not be allowed to enter.) "While 
old Fritz leaps from his golden throne 
to welcome each home-coming Prus- 
sian soldier." It sounds blasphem- 
ous, but it appears that Prussian 
militancy has dethroned even the 
Lord God Omnipotent, and has placed 
the Thief of vSilesia on the Golden 
Throne. I wonder how he ever en- 
tered in. We are told that " Nothing 
that worketh abomination or maketh 
a lie can ever enter in," and it was old 
Fritz who once said " If it pays us to 
be honest; let us be honest. But 
if it is necessary to lie, let us be 
cheats." 

There is, then, this that we can do. 
We can see to it that every child 



THE CLOUD 41 

in our schools, in our churches, in our 
homes, nay, that every man and 
woman, too, in all America shall be 
brought up to love and reverence 
every star in oui' flag, to such a con- 
secration of life to all for which that 
flag stands as shall produce a devo- 
tion and loyalty that shall outmatch 
the best that Germany can do. 

Our Flag! 

** We who in the old days, the easy 

days of pleasuring, 
Loitered in the distant lands, we 

know the thrill that came 
When, in far foreign places, above the 

stranger faces, 
The sight of it, the might of it, would 

wake us like a flame. 
Our own flag, the one flag, it stirred 

our blood to claim. 



42 THE CLOUD 

"We who in these new days, these 
days of all confusion, 

Look upon it with the eyes of one 
long blind who sees, 

We know at last its beauty, its mag- 
nitude of duty. 

Dear God! If thus it seems to us, 
what will it mean to these 

Who wait for it, who pray for it, our 
kindred over seas? 

"These who face the red days, the 

white nights of fury, 
Where Death, like some mad reaper, 

hacks down the living grain. 
They shall see our flag arise like a 

glory in the skies. 
The Stars of it, the Bars of it, that 

prove it once again 
The new Flag, the true Flag, that 

does not come in vain." 

(Theodosia Garrison.) 



THE CLOUD 43 

It is for every one of us, if it costs 
all that we have and all that we are, 
to see to it that that Flag comes 
swiftly, with the maximum of power, 
and that it " does not come in 
vain." 

There is another thing that we 
can do. We can remember that 
Loyalty to America to-day means 
also Loyalty to her allies. 

A great propaganda is being waged 
throughout this country which is in- 
tended to arouse suspicion, distrust 
and antagonism, towards England. 
The Germanic value of that propa- 
ganda is obvious. It is dangerous 
to-day to advocate sympathy for Ger- 
many, but if German agents can sow 
seeds of distrust among the Allies 
and can divide England, France and 
America or hinder their perfection of 



44 THE CLOUD 

cooperation Germany will be the 
gainer. 

That propaganda may be found in 
books on the shelves of our libraries; 
it appears occasionally in the pages 
of some of our newspapers; it is 
working among the soldiers in our 
cantonments. It is playing on the 
memories of 1776 and of 186 1; it is 
working on all Irish loyalties and 
sympathies; it is striking every note 
of passion and of prejudice. In view 
of this propaganda, it is time for us 
to review the relations of America 
with England and to strike a balance. 

We have recently celebrated the 
Centennial Anniversary that com- 
memorated the conclusion of one 
hundred years of unbroken peace 
with England. In view of that Cen- 
tenary, we might consider the books 



THE CLOUD 45 

of 1776 as definitely closed, although 
still we should remember that Burke 
and Chatham together v/ith a host of 
English Whigs fought the battle for 
the American revolutionists no less 
bravely and staimchly than did the 
armies of the Americans themselves. 
We might also recall the words of 
George III to Mr. Adams, the first 
Minister of the United States to 
Great Britain: " Sir," said the King, 
*' I wish you to believe, and that it 
may be understood in America, that 
I have done nothing in the late con- 
test but what I thought myself in- 
dispensably bound to do by the duty 
which I owed to my people. I will 
be very frank with you. I was the 
last to consent to the separation; but 
the separation having been made I 
have always said, as I say to you 



46 THE CLOUD 

now, that I would be the first to 
meet the friendship of the United 
States as an independent power." 
That message of friendship surely 
closes the issues of the Revolution. 
In 1 86 1 and throughout the Civil 
War, it is admitted that the majority 
of the English aristocracy, the Parlia- 
ment and the Cabinet were in sym- 
pathy with the South. But it is also 
true that the great mass of the 
scholars, writers and almost the whole 
of the English middle class were 
strong in their sympathies with the 
Government at Washington. Let me 
quote passages from Prof. Willis 
Fletcher Johnston's "American For- 
eign Relations," ''The next step of 
the British Government was even 
more marked in its friendship to the 
United States, This was on June 



THE CLOUD 47 

ist, the issuance of an order forbid- 
ding the naval vessels or privateers 
of either belligerent to carry prizes 
into any British port or territorial 
waters. The Confederate Commis- 
sion in London earnestly protested 
against the order, but in vain, while 
Seward remarked that it would prob- 
ably prove a death blow to Southern 
privateering. The example set by 
England was followed by France, •' 
Spain, Prussia, Holland, etc." "Adams 
reported to Seward that he was as- 
sured on every hand that sympathy 
with the Federal Government was 
universal." " The blockade brought 
to England the greatest industrial 
distress the land had ever known, for 
which at first the North was held 
responsible. Against this judgment 
several influences were in timiC tri- 



48 THE CLOUD 

umphant." " Punch," attacking the 
attitude of the EngHsh Government 
wrote : 

" Though with the North we sympa- 
thise it must not be forgotten 

That with the South we've stronger 
ties which are composed of Cotton. 

The South enslaves their fellowmen, 
whom we all love so dearly 

The North keeps commerce bound 
again, which touches us more 
nearly. 

Thus a divided duty we perceive in 
this hard matter. 

Free Trade, or sable brothers free? 

Oh, won't we choose the latter? " 

" Battle of Humanity " 

" Bright, Forster, the Duke of 
Argyll and * Tom ' Hughes spoke 



THE CLOUD 49 

effectively to convince England that 
the United States was fighting the 
great battle of humanity. ' The ques- 
tion of intervention between the 
Federal and Confederate Govern- 
ments arose early in the War. It 
was practically considered only by 
England and France. The latter was 
far more incHned to such action; it 
proposed it earlier, more frequently 
and in a more extreme form.' When' 
the purpose of the Emancipation 
Proclamation was imderstood, the 
heart of the English people responded 
to it with an impulse no power could 
withstand and which no Government 
could defy. A great public meeting 
was held in London on New Year's 
Eve which hailed the dawn of an era 
of universal freedom and of closer 
friendship between England and 



50 THE CLOUD 

America. At the same time a similar 
gathering in Manchester, stricken as 
it was with the cotton famine, adopted 
similar resolutions addressed to the 
President of the United States. At 
Sheffield a vast gathering passed 
resolutions to the effect that it was 
the duty of England to give her sym- 
pathy and moral support to the 
Northern States. All England took 
up the cry within the next few weeks. 
Deputations waited upon the Ameri- 
can Minister with addresses of sym- 
pathy and encouragement. At least 
two members of the Cabinet, the 
Duke of Argyll and Milner Gibson, 
spoke publicly for the Federal Cause. 
Vast meetings at Spurgeon's Taber- 
nacle and at Exeter Hall applauded the 
name of Lincoln and cried down that 
of Jefferson Davis. In Gloucester- 



THE CLOUD 51 

shire any apparent complicity of 
England with the Confederacy in the 
equipment of warships was con- 
demned and in almost every consider- 
able city or town in England, Scot- 
land or Wales such sentiments were 
expressed at great popular assem- 
blies. An increasing number of states- 
men, including such men as Lord 
DisraeH and Lord Derby, openly 
espoused the Federal side." 

Since the Civil War, the evidences 
of England's friendship have been as 
many as they have been valuable. 
We have good reason to believe, 
although it never can be proved as 
the proposals were never reduced to 
writing, that at the time of our war 
with Spain an effort was made by 
the Powers of Continental Europe, 
who were all strongly pro-vSpanish 



62 THE CLOUD 

and anti-American in their sympa- 
thies, to band Europe together and 
to intervene unitedly between the 
United States and Spain, but in the 
interests of Spain and to the detri- 
ment of the United States. This 
scheme was only blocked by the atti- 
tude of England. 

At Manila 

We should do well also to remem- 
ber the day in Manila Bay when 
the English Fleet steamed and an- 
chored between the German ships 
and Admiral Dewey's squadron and 
when Admiral Chichester practically 
gave von Diderich to understand 
that a shot fired against America 
would hit England first. Just 
before this war broke out, Ger- 



THE CLOUD 53 

many went to England, unofficially, 
to say that that Government had it 
in mind to seize parts of Argentine 
and of Brazil and to establish Im- 
perial colonies there, and wished to 
know the attitude of the English in 
such a contingency. England re- 
plied, also unofficially, that Gennany 
had forgotten the Monroe Doctrine. 
Germany responded that she had not 
forgotten the Monroe Doctrine, but 
that she was prepared to meet that 
issue with America if, and when, 
America raised that issue. England 
then said that she could only con- 
sider such an act by Germany as an 
expression of unfriendliness and the 
German fleet never sailed. 

Let us remember that Germany has 
never assented to the Monroe Doc- 
trine. In 1898 Count von Goetzen 



54 THE CLOUD 

said " About fifteen years from now 
my country will begin a great war. 
In two months she will be in Paris; 
then will come the crushing of Eng- 
land. Some months after we have 
finished our work in Europe we will 
take New York and probably Wash- 
ington and hold them for some time. 
We will put your country in its place 
with reference to Germany. We will 
take a billion of dollars or more from 
New York and other places. The 
Monroe Doctrine will be taken charge 
of by us, as we will then have put 
you in your place and we will take 
charge of South America as far as 
we want to." 

*' An Impertinence " 

" The Monroe Doctrine cannot be 
justified, it is only an aspiration 



THE CLOUD 55 

which we Europeans consider an im- 
pertinence. The inviolability of 
American soil is invoked without 
there being at hand the slightest 
means of warding off an attack of 
a respectable European Power. "So 
said Johannes Vollert in 1903. 

I am told by men who freely admit 
England's friendliness and its value 
to America that after all, England is 
not disinterested. She saw herself 
confronted by the hostility of great 
powers abroad and needed the sup- 
port of America; hence her friendH- 
ness. Is it not asking a great deal 
of any Government that we should 
demand that it should rest its policies 
on disinterested affection for another 
people and not upon the welfare of 
those for whose wellbeing they have 
been placed in office? But, if we dis- 



56 THE CLOUD 

count English friendship on that 
ground, let us be logical and con- 
sistent. We have publicly and en- 
thusiastically admitted our debt to 
France for the help she gave us in 
our Revolution. But before the year 
1776 Vergennes, who was over the 
Foreign Office in Paris, had written 
a memorial on American affairs. " In 
the document the importance of 
maintaining a close alliance between 
the different branches of the House 
of Bourbon and of opposing on all 
occasions the interests of Great 
Britain was clearly demonstrated and 
especial stress was laid upon the 
necessity of aiding the Americans in 
their struggle for independence. The 
defeat and submission of the colonies 
would, Vergennes declared, be fol- 
lowed by disastrous consequences for 



THE CLOUD 57 

the French and Spanish possessions 
in the West Indies. If, however, the 
Americans won by their own exer- 
tions, they would be themselves dis- 
posed to conquer the French and 
Spanish West Indies, so as to pro- 
vide fresh outlets for their produc- 
tions. Hence it was of supreme im- 
portance that France should at once 
lay the colonists under a debt of 
gratitude ..." 

" Let Us Be Just " 

I yield to none in my admiration 
and affection for France, but let us 
be just in the application of our 
standards and criterions of judgment. 
If we are to condemn and repudiate, 
our debt to England because we 
deny it the element of disinterested- 



58 THE CLOUD 

ness, let us also, and for the same 
reason, repudiate our admitted debt 
to France. It is admitted that we 
were utterly unprepared for war even 
as late as 191 7. Mr. George Creel 
defends our unpreparedness and says 
that we could not logically and con- 
sistently work for peace while we 
prepared for war, but even in defend- 
ing he admits the fact. While we 
have been so unprepared it has been 
the English fleet that has been de- 
fending our Monroe Doctrine; it is 
the English fleet that has kept our 
coasts unscarred; it is the EngHsh 
fleet that has enabled our commerce 
and our transports to cross the seas; 
it is that Imperial Hne of ships and 
guns and men that have protected 
us through our uneasy slumbers, that 
have given us time to wake up to the 



THE CLOUD 59 

issues of this war and upon which 
we have depended for the oppor- 
tunity to make ready and prepare. 

Again and again has England saved 
the world; once when the white 
sails of the Armada rounded Ushant 
and spread out over the English 
Channel ; again when Louis XIV was 
threatening the Old World and the 
New; again when Bonaparte was 
making and unmaking kings from 
Madrid to Warsaw; but never did 
England give to the world a greater 
service than when she offered up that 
little Expeditionary Army and threw 
herself, all unprepared, across the 
pathway of victorious Germany. Not 
one of us can look at the ruins of the 
cities of France and Belgium and 
remember the threats of Germany 
directed towards ourselves without 



60 THE CLOUD 

thinking with a shudder at what 
might be the condition of our own 
cities and citizens had England failed 
the world in that dreadful summer of 
1914. 

** Poison of Hatred '* 

The American citizen who is op- 
posed to England because of the 
memories of 1776, or because of the 
attitude of the English Government 
in 1 86 1, we can understand. We can 
argue with him sympathetically, for 
his antagonism is based on American 
history imperfectly studied. But the 
German-American who hates Eng- 
land, not because of what she has 
at any time done to America, but be- 
cause of what he thinks she has done 
or would do to Germany and who 



THE CLOUD 61 

spreads the poison of his hatred 
through America, is admittedly dis- 
loyal. The Irish- American who hates 
England, not because of anything 
she has done to America, but because 
of what Cromwell did in Ireland 
nearly three hundred years ago or 
because of what English Cabinets 
may not have done in more recent 
years may not be disloyal in intent, 
but he stands upon the same basis 
as the German-American in this, that 
he imports antagonism; he does not 
base it on American soil but on a 
soil that is three thousand miles away. 
His antagonism is not due to his 
Americanism, but to his affections 
for another land. But exactl}^ the 
same must be said of the German- 
American who preaches hate for 
England. To-day English ships con- 



62 THE CLOUD 

voy our squadrons safely through the 
seas made dangerous by Germany; 
American destroyers are helping to 
guard English shores ; American regi- 
ments are merging with English regi- 
ments and are acting as reserves and 
reinforcements for the English Army; 
our flag and the English flag are 
flying side by side in Picardy. Our 
guns stand wheel to wheel with 
English guns; our ships, our armies 
and our Red Cross are standing side 
by side with English surgeons, nurses, 
soldiers and battleships. The same 
spirit of unity must be maintained 
at home as well as abroad and we 
must understand that a common cause 
makes a common foe, but it also 
makes a common friend. Loyalty 
to America to-day means also loyalty 
to England. 



THE CLOUD 63 

I have a friend, president of a large 
corporation which employs thousands 
of men, who has been called to the 
head of a Department of a certain 
war activity in Washington. He told 
me that they had given him what 
seemed to be a very unimportant task, 
one that any clerk in his employ could 
well discharge, " but," he said, *' I 
am trying to make it important by 
putting into it the best I have and 
the best that I can do." 

When that spirit grips us, every 
single one, we shall sweep forward 
to a victory that nothing in all Ger- 
many can ever halt. 

There is one other issue in this war, 
one other thing for which we fight, 
and I have left it to the last. 

Mr. La Follette tells us that we are 
going to war to protect our invest- 



64 THE CLOUD 

merits, and we are. We have entered 
this war for just that purpose; we 
have gone to war to protect our in- 
vestments, but not our stocks and 
bonds. Do you realize that ever 
since this war broke out in 1914, not 
a ship has sailed from any Atlantic 
port of America or Canada, but that 
it has carried Americans, men of our 
flesh and blood, speaking our language 
to fight this battle against the Beast. 
Wherever men have fallen, these 
have fallen; wherever men have 
died, on the land, in the air, on the 
sea or in German prison camps, these 
have died; their ashes lie mingled 
with those of England's best, their 
bones rest in the soil of Serbia, Italy, 
Belgium and France. 

"We cannot dedicate, we cannot 
consecrate, we cannot hallow this 



THE CLOUD 65 

ground. The brave men, living and 
dead, who struggled here, have con- 
secrated it far above our power to 
add or detract. ... It is for us, 
the living, rather, to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far 
so nobly advanced . . . that we 
here highly resolve that these dead 
shall not have died in vain." 

We all remember the vision of Con- 
stantine; that flaming cross gleaming 
in the sky with the words written 
over it: " In hoc signo vinces." But 
there is another vision of crosses that 
rises before our eyes. Little crosses, 
white crosses, wooden crosses, that 
march in serried ranks across the 
trench-scarred face of Europe from 
the North Sea to the Black Sea — a 
veritably forest of crosses, low-lying, 



66 THE CLOUD 

yet they throw a longer and a darker 
shadow than cypress, hemlock or than 
pine, for beneath them lie the great 
hearts of the Empire, of Belgium, 
France, Italy, Serbia, and Roumania; 
they call to us, they wait for us. 
*' Who says their day is over, while 

others carry on 
The little wooden crosses spell but 

the dead and gone? 
Not while they deck a sky line, not 

while they crown a view, 
Or a living soldier sees them and sets 

his teeth anew." 

(E. W. HORNUNG.) 

Now, listen: 

" In Flanders' fields the poppies grow 

Between the crosses, row on row, 

That mark our place ; 

While, in the sky. 

The larks still bravely singing fly 



THE CLOUD d7 

Unheard amid the guns. 
We are the dead; short days ago 
We lived, saw dawn, felt sunsets glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
In Flanders' fields. 

Take up our battle with the foe ; 
To you, from falling hands we throw 
The torch, be yours to bear it high. 
If ye break faith with us who die, 
We shall not sleep, though poppies 

blow 
In Flanders' fields/' 

(John McRae.) 

It was before Verdun. All day long 
the lines in the field-gray uniforms 
had been assailing a French trench. 
Late in the afternoon the continual 
pressure forced the French to yield 
the ground. Only the dead and dying 



68 THE CLOUD 

were left when the Germans filed 
through to take possession. Then a 
wondrous thing happened. There 
was a pile of the dead blocking up the 
trench, and that pile began to stir, 
a movement swept through it. Up 
from that ghastly heap there came 
first a hand, then an arm, a face, and 
a dying Frenchman looked his Ger- 
man conquerers in the eye. Then 
with a strength gathered from God 
knows where, he sprang to his feet, 
his voice rang out shrill, insistent, 
imperative, " Debout les morts," — 
" To your feet, ye Dead," and by the 
Living God of Israel, the Dead heard 
him and up from the reek and mire 
of that blood-stained trench dying 
Frenchmen, men as good as dead, 
staggered to their feet and drove the 
living Germans from that trench. So 



THE CLOUD 69 

again the Tricolor rose above the 
parapet, the evening breeze caressed 
it, the last rays of the setting Sun 
saluted it! 

Is there more of that spirit 
among dead Frenchmen than there 
is in living Americans? Thank 
God, No. Seicheprey gives us the 
answer. When we see one American 
boy going through a barrage of fire 
seven times to bring ammunition up t(5 
the front, when we hear another mor- 
tally wounded hand over his grenades 
saying " I can't use these now, take 
them and use them," when we see 
the entire line, outnumbered eight 
to one, give ground slowly, exacting 
the maximum price for every yard 
and then at last come back, driving 
the Germans out of the village, out 
of every captured trench, until the 



70 jTHE CLOUD 

flag once more covers every foot of 
groiind over which it has flown at 
the simrise; we know the soul of 
America still lives. But that spirit 
must live in us at home, as well as 
in the trenches of France. The cry 
of that dying Frenchman calls to us, 
insistent and imperative: ** Debout 
les americains." " To your feet, 
America," and let your very soul make 
speed ! 




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